Oberlin College - Hi-O-Hi Yearbook (Oberlin, OH)

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t ;'AI-;AL:-L:Zk:.J:-:l.r -3;k:u.h;;;tggw5 : 'T a i S .3, $ V;- t,. s; 2. A Ww- mu-aw .ianir-lzvmtif; rm Mn RIVYHU ti HI! HI! ttmn, ypslu. --2H:. H- Muz-ih Miumi Mulrsuu li-nn I M i . Ii - . OBERIJN i'FEHALE xi L'DliX 18 0!. v. nr-i-rui nxtrxm IHE LXI l: Hl-I 1H tt! 1859 In September 1858 a small army of Oberlin wagons and horsemen thundered down the road to Wellington, 10 miles to the south, to rescue a fugitive named John Price from slave-catchers who had come into Oberlin to carry him off the night before. Some twenty Oberlin men spent three months in a Cleveland jail for their crime in rescuing John Price. The Wellington Rescue became the central legend in the Oberlin abolitionist tradition. A year later, several black Oberlinians joined John Brown in his raid on Harperis Ferry. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, an anti- Negro, anti- abolitionist paper in those days, said, tiOberlinism is abolitionism boiled down to the quintessence of bitterness. Its reputation in this respect is worldwide. The humorist Petroleum V. Nasby, explaining why the Civil War took place, wrote, Oberlin commenst this war. Oberlin wuz the prime cause uv all the trubble.

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1850 The entrenched sin of American slavery ultimately posed the most blatant challenge to perfectionist ideals. Abolition became the dominating moral cause of the 18505. It really put Oberlin on the map. The town was a main stop on the so- called Underground Railroad of places helping escaped slaves and free blacks on their way to Canada. Many of them Chose to stay in Oberlin, and by 1860, 20 percent of the town's population was black or mulatto tprobably the highest percentage of any town in the Northy I; I M w Z1, I tradile ' N- f.- eh d' 1 n ' k e I .j MV- E! u, 1'. a q, x , 4- f K Ill kl I Uh llllt lhhl Rt-RUI'VD RHLROU! Unlum N511 ti w-p' I'lut Hmum' .nui l'mL LHHx, lww nlv lnr N no hum Illt' Hnuw n! Buluiugu nllith l m-ut mu xn m mu Hm mu hill xn- m Xhmll Ihm mu tell Hu'il nun um x hmu H: H. H. EluLv NHI ht. 1 NH t-RHH tHh D's, H e Hn-Iw u :' ' t monk :m- hum wnzu .szv HR lmun aim m.tt .A Human: .:,x' m Hrn' :lI-n: gun .x. I.WWQv a X ' ' WES; , ssxgxte gas. w, tar; A W . ya , M , ' umwuua-I: f 5123 nauamE Sn altars arbolxrsbtp. lstoau-n'nrs 'ii at it , IL, 4 Tmnmvg 2 mun: outmnXoZm :4 E cmanfwzkws 49mm, 0 M .- 1 3f? 1'. mam 91M W. 7! mmom mum, fmJ a. M: . II I? 6..., rcrnr 44 KZLWZHW II . NY wau-I GZMIIQIJ zd; Mu. limlcf, d! a Irma, Mr any dzihubnwwt y-MIJ$: h' t t , ,- a v . k. I , . ' x'r- ; , Nb??? thVayl, 041-4117 XI! Myulir; lnwm JuNmJ- I 14-.37unn'u iluygwalal w; Mm .nx-M M Ma Am, 3:4 s, nuJ .' 1 ' 4M; ; .mgox, .4 .w. u ; An. M 71v a mid uvw. J u KLLAMLI, .L-'.,.-.'7 a 3m? Ana 1- + a :4 4 n t g.ggm '. MW... an :19. ugh. ..-.'. . lvnfu 1.7.-.. ef.,, ' rnt .1 h' I; A... .-. u ,.. w-J' I. rm. 43' t ItH hit DHE INHI tR V HUI tkhllll' ',-. mzthrgxru, v; :1 if v 3 t

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1860 The Civil War changed Oberlin, just as it changed the rest of the country. The war reshuffled people's values quite thoroughly. The fighting itself twhich cost 500,000 lives, a figure to which Oberlin contributed more than its sharei forced a reassessment of pre-war perfectionist enthusiasm. Where before the war much energy had been spent on attacking conventional institutions because they corrupted human behavior, now for the rest of the century efforts were aimed at building up and fortifying institutions in order to control behavior in the interest of peaceful stability. For Oberlin this meant building the endowment tit tripled in the 18005i, enlarging the size of the student body tit doubled in the ,BOSX and rebuilding the physical campus on and around Tappan Square almost from scratch. Another long-term result of the Civil War was a strong psychological bond between Oberlin and the Republican party, the party of union and moral virtue. All the statistics suggest an overwhelming Republican majority among students, faculty, trustees and townspeople that lasted well into the 20th Century. Though the bond began to fray after World War I and The Great Depression, it took Barry Goldwater to inspire Oberlin's first Democratic presidential majority in 1964. The town has been mostly Democratic ever since. 10 XIXRIXXXI'I PXRKER UHCUMB Hmul IHiin